Projects

We are currently working on a number of projects. Each of these have been informed by talking to people about their concerns. If you would like to get involved or find out more about any of these, do let us know.

Spotlight Series

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Hospital Discharge

Throughout 2016, we talked to patients about their experience of being discharged from hospital in North Kent. You can read a copy of our report below.

In 2017 we focused on hearing the experiences of people being discharged from hospital in West Kent first and then East Kent.

A copy of our West Kent report and East Kent report can be found below.

In 2019 we returned to West Kent to see what progress has been made since our visit. We heard about innovative solutions such as a 'man with a van' scheme to deliver medicines to people at home to ensure their discharge was not delayed as well as schemes to help people move furnuture and clear space to enable people to return to their homes. All the progress in West Kent is detailed in our Impact report below.

If you have an experience of being discharged (good or not so good) then do PLEASE let us know by calling us for free on 0808 801 0102 or emailing info@healthwatchkent.co.uk

Foodbanks

Together with our parent company, Engaging Kent, we have been talking to Foodbanks across Kent about the challenges they face. We have also been listening to them about the experiences of their clients. You can read about what they told us below.

Engaging Kent offered to bring all the Foodbanks together and facilitate a conversation between them all.

In April, we bought together seven Foodbanks to explore how we could all work better together and identify some of the issues they may want to work together on. Everything we talked about is in the report below.

We offered to arrange a second gathering in September where all Food Banks agreed that they would officially like to come together as a Food Bank Forum and work to raise awareness and understanding of key issues. The first of these issues will be the reality of Food Poverty that is facing many people in Kent. The report from the September meeting can also be read below.

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Care Homes

During our visits, we used the 10 key indicators that have been developed by Independent Age to demonstrate what makes a good care home.

This report summarises at the findings from our visits. Individual reports on each Care Home are being added too.

If you have an experience of a Care Home in Kent do let us know. We want to hear the good as well as the not so good. Contact us on our free Helpline on 0808 801 0102 or email info@healthwatchkent.co.uk

Carers

Carer services across Kent are currently being reviewed. We wanted to ensure people knew what it is really like to be a Carer in Kent so we based ourselves in supermarkets to talk to people who are carers but who are not part of a support group.

We spoke to 158 Carers and the majority of them were receiving no support at all. We heard from many desperate and exhausted people. You can read everything we heard in our report below.

If you are a carer do get in touch. We want to hear the good stories too. Call us anytime on 0808 801 0102 or email info@healthwatchkent.co.uk

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Care at Home

We have looked into two aspects of care at home : nursing care and social care.

Most recently we wrote to all 700 patients on the Isle of Sheppey who are currently being looked after at home by Virgin Care. Only 19 people replied to us which was very disappointing but the majority of those were positive stories. You can read our report below.

We also worked with Kent Community Health Foundation Trust (KCHFT) to reach patients who were receiving nursing care at home in Thanet & Canterbury. We heard from many patients about their experience either through face to face home visits, on the telephone, via email or in writing.

We have done a similar exercise to reach people in Dover & Shepway who are receiving social care services at home.

Copies of all the reports, our findings and our recommendations can be found below.

If you have ANY experience about care at home that you would like to share with us, good or bad, then do please ring us for free on 0808 801 0102 or email info@healthwatchkent.co.uk

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Out of county beds for mental health patients

We’ve heard for several years now from people and families about the distress caused when mental health patients are treated outside of Kent, often far from home.

We worked with the mental health trust and the organisations that commission mental health beds to understand what work is going on to better support patients within the county. We also been talked to patients and families to tell their stories about their experiences.

Our report below details everything that we heard.

At the time of our report, many patients were being treated for mental health conditions outside of Kent. Our report, together with the work of many people in the mental health community, raised the issues faced by these patients and their families and ensured professionals focused on the issue and sought a resolution. Since then, there have been no Kent residents who have been placed outside of Kent for mental health treatment unless they have requested to do so.The Clinical Commissioning Groups and the mental health Trust have been working hard to ensure this remains the case and regularly review the situation. Healthwatch continues to get regular updates too.

You can read our full report below. Let us know if you need a printed copy.

Children and Adolescent Mental Health service

BackgroundWe consistently hear from patients and families about their issues and concerns about the Children & Adolescent Mental health service in Kent Two years ago we did a project to talk to people who used the service and find out more.We highlighted some issues and made a number of recommendations. We promised that we would revisit the service to see if things had improved.

What are we trying to achieve now?We've spoken to over 300 patients, families and professionals from all over Kent about their recent experiences of this service.

Some of what we heard was not positive.

We made a number of detailed recommendations. The good news is that all of our recommendations have been included in the new specification of this service.

You can read a full copy of the report below. Let us know if you need a printed copy.

We are working with the new provider of this service to ensure our recommendations are being rolled out. We are also setting up a meeting with our young volunteers to discuss how they can improve the way they work with young people.

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Access to services for the Eastern European population in East Kent

Two years ago we raised concerns about how people from Eastern European communities accessed health and social care services.

We did a report and made a number of recommendatios.

Since then we have continued to hear from people about the challenges they face particilarly around translation services. To explore these issues further we have been listening to members of the Eastern European community in Thanet as well as talking with GP practises and commissioners.

Everything we heard can be found in our report below.

We will be working with GP practises and Thanet Clinical Commissioning Group to improve access to translation services for everyone who needs it.

Healthwatch has become concerned about how the Eastern European community is accessing health and social care services, particularly in East Kent. To explore this concern further and to identify the issues, we

If you have an experience to share please give us a call for free on 0808 801 0102 or email info@healthwatchkent.co.uk We have a free translation service available.

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Access to GPs & GP Closures

Getting an appointment with a GP is one of the top things we hear about from people all over Kent.

We visited three GP surgeries in South Kent Coast to hear from people about their experience of getting an appointment.

Our report details everything we heard and makes a number of recommendations. You can read our report below.

We have written to all GP surgeries in the South Kent Coast area asking them for an update on thier progress following our report. We've had little response to our letters so we are now arranging visits face to face with each surgery to explore what has been done in more detail.

We have also been trying to raise concerns from people whose GP surgery has closed. People in Thanet have been particularly hard hit by a series of GP closures and we have heard from people about how unsettling and for some people, scary it can be particilarly if you have a long term health condition or mental health illness. We asked NHS England and Thanet Clinical Commissioning Group to help us reach more of the patients who had been affected by these closures but they declined to support us. We have published feedback from those people that we have heard from and you can read it below.

Since then we have developed the Healthwatch Checklist for GP Closures and Mergers. The Checklist is intended to support commissioners and GPs when a surgery is potentially closing or merging. It details how they should involve, communicate and inform people and communities about the potential changes. The Checklist clearly sets out what we would expect them to do in that situation.

You can download a copy of the Checklist below. Five other Healthwatches are also using our Checklist in their own area.

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Experiences of Gypsy & Traveller Communities in Kent

Kent is a large and diverse county. We are home to the very rich, and the very poor. Kent is also home to many varied communities and cultures. The rich landscape brings with it challenges for the health and social care system. Different cultures use and experience services in different ways.

This report details everything that we have heard so far. We will use it to raise the issues faced by the Traveller community.

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Repeat prescriptions

Across England changes are being made to reduce the amount of medicines that are wasted every year.

In South Kent Coast area alone, it is estimated that £900,000 is wasted each year on unwanted medicines. Clearly somthing needs to be done so the organisation that is responsible for commissioning services, South Kent Coast Clinical Commissioning Group introduced some changes to the way patients receive repeat prescriptions. We've been hearing from both patients and professionals about these changes so we wanted to find out more.

We spoke to 91 patients in the South Kent Coast area about their experience. Not everything we heard has been positive.All our findings are in our report which also includes responses from the CCG and the Local Pharmaceutical Committee.

The purpose of our report was to share the experiences of patients and professionals following the changes to repeat prescriptions in South Kent Coast. In addition, we wanted to highlight the importance of involving and communicating with patients and professionals about any changes to services, not just pharmacy services.

Our report has been shared directly with commissioners who have been considering similar changes to prescriptions both in Kent and further afield. We hope that by raising these issues, it has informed their own thinking and encouraged them to involve patients in their own plans and decision making. We will continue to encourage organisations to involve patients at every stage of a service change.

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Outpatients

Outpatients is a service that we hear about regularly. We hear about it from patients but it often comes up as an issue by the Care Quality Commission.

We have organised formal Enter & View visits to talk to patients at several Kent hospitals including Maidstone Hosoital, Tunbridge Wells Hospital, QEQM in Margate, Kent & Canterbury Hospital and William Harvey Hospital. After those visits we made formal recommendations and we have been working with the hospitals since then to help them implement our improvement suggestions.

We also regularly visit Outpatients at all the hospitals in Kent to talk to patients about their experience on an informal basis. We anonymise and share all the issues we hear from these visits too and they form an important part of our conversation with each hospital.

Below we have attached the five formal reports that we published following our Enter & View visits.

We have also published a summary of our progress and the changes that have been made to date as a result of your feedback.

Do please continue to share your feedback about Outpatients (and any hospital service) with us.

Dentists : The Tooth Be Told

In 2016, we published a report detailing the work we had done listening to people in Tunbridge Wells about their NHS dentist.

We heard about a range of issues including difficulties getting an appointment with an NHS dentist, confusion around payment and severe challenges for older people in care homes.

We made a number of recommendations in 2016 and we have been working with the Dental Network ever since to implement these changes. Whilst many of the changes we want to see are complex and long term, we have made some progress.

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Patient Participation Groups in Kent

We have been hearing from Patient Participations Groups (PPG) from all over Kent about their work and the challenges that they face.

We spoke with over 100 PPG members and practices in total. Much of the feedback centred around lack of support, guidance and information. However, every Group and Practice had very different and unique challenges. There is not a one size fits all solution.

We have developed a comprehensive action plan which wil address some of these issues. We will also be working with the local Clinical Commissioning Groups about what they need to do too.

Below you will find our Executive Summary and action plan plus a copy of the full report.

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East Kent Hospitals

Following an inspection from the Care Quality Commission which rated East Kent Hospitals as Inadequate we have been working closely with them to support the Hospitals in their bid to improve.

The Care Quality Commission raised particular concerns around Accident & Emergency Care and Outpatient services. With that in mind, we have visited A&E and Outpatients to talk to patients about their experiences and the services they receive. Our first visits took place around Christmas 2014. We have since revisited all these services in 2015 to see if people's experiences have changed or improved.

Our full reports are published below. We will be working with East Kent Hospitals to monitor the improvements we have identified.

If you have an experience from any of East Kent Hospitals then do please share it with us on 0808 801 0102 or email info@healthwatchkent.co.uk

The experience of mental health carers

We have heard from many carers of people with mental health issues about their experiences. This has prompted us to undertake an investigative project to undercover what it is really like to be a mental health carer.

As part of our project we brought together a number of carers from across Kent, Carer organisations, commissioners of mental health services and providers of mental health services. At this meeting, we discussed the themes that had emerged from talking to carers and agreed together some ways to progress forward. The actions from this meeting have been combined with the experiences that we heard from carers into a report which is attached below for you to read. Also attached is a response from Kent & Medway Social Care Partnership Trust who provide the majority of mental health services in Kent about the actions they plan to take following our report.

You will see that many of our recommendations will take time and can only be delivered in collaboration. We have established an Action Group which will monitor and progress these actions. For more information on this and any of our reports, please email info@healthwatchkent.co.uk

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Complaint Systems

We know from talking to you that the complaints system for health and social care services is extremely complicated and confusing. This isn't a problem unique to Kent, it's a national issue.

Healthwatch England has published a report calling for a total reform of the complaints system. You can read a copy of their report here. They've also undertake research which indicates that two thirds of people don't report poor service. The reasons for this are complicated and range from a fear of how your care might be affected in the future, through to the overly complicated system.

Here in Kent, we have completed our own project into the complaints system. We've worked with an organisation called SEAP to gather experiences from the public about making a complaint. We've also been working with health and social care organisations to examine their current systems and talk to them about how they could be improved. The results from this work will be shared with the organisations that provide health & social care services in Kent. It has given us a good understanding of the issues and will inform a further piece of work around complaints.

In the meantime, do please continue to share your experiences of making a complaint of either health or social care services. How did you find the process? Have you tried to make a complaint and failed? Would you like to make a complaint but don't know how? We want to hear your story. Please call us on 0808 801 0102 or email us on info@healthwatchkent.co.uk

Public consultations

Part of Healthwatch's role is to ensure the public are involved and listened to when services are being planned or changed.

We would encourage all organisations who are planning any changes to services to get in touch with us and involve us as early as possible. Contact Nicky on nicky@healthwatchkent.co.uk

Many organisations have told us that the guidance on what they should and shouldn't do is not clear. With that in mind, we have created our Best Practice Guide to Consultations which explains the key stages that organisations must work through to ensure they are meeting their legal requirements.

Similarly we have created a guide for the public to explain what they can expect from consultations. Both guides are attached below.

To scruitinise consultations we have a trained group of volunteers who work with us to ensure public consultations follow the correct process. We have raised some questions around some Kent County Council consultations recently. Copies of the reports are also below.